a hike with mike
Its been a while since me and Michael had been for a walk together, but also a very long time since I had used my M4, so I dug it & the 50mm f2 Planar out, and met him in the Peak District for a ramble around Derwent & Ladybower!
The M4 is entirely mechanical, no batteries, no light meter, and having spent the best part of 6 months mostly using Nikon bodies with internal light meters, it was nice to start using a handheld meter again!
I find that regular use of a handheld light meter can help you learn lighting scenario’s and help you build an intuition to what settings you need to use. Because you’re physically moving the meter around, seeing the effect different angles of light can have (mines an incident meter), and then having to read out and input those settings into the camera, it embeds in your mind more (well mine anyway) than, say pointing the camera at the subject and rotating the shutter speed dial until you get the right symbols, or the needles align.
On todays walk I had a roll of Ilford Delta 100 loaded.
The route we took started at Cutthroat Bridge, passed a long Derwent Edge to Back Torr, Lost Lad, and back down along the waters edge and past the Dam, before heading back up to Derwent edge and back to the bridge. This is one of my regular and favourite routes in the area, and it was nice for me, and Bo to have some company, someone with an interest in film cameras, who also shoots a Leica - an M6.
I also took along my F3, with a roll of Harman Phoenix. I’ve been wanting to see how this film behaves with landscapes, and the lighting today was a fairly typical British mix of overcast clouds, or clouds and a little sun. Most of these photos were duplicated on the F3, so i’m interested to see the results!
This time using my M4 again made me fall back in love with it, things in my life hadn’t been going to well for the last few months and I had almost sold it, but putting another roll through it has really made me happy I hadn’t.
Using it side by side with the F3 has also been wonderful, both cameras are truly so satisfying and silky smooth to use!
